To err is human;

A couple of weeks ago I came across something in The Guardian about the differences between English and American writers' uses of the semicolon. Here it is; and here's a copy of the original article.

I feel duty bound to add that I consider overuse of the semicolon to be insufferably vulgar (and, naturally, cannot subscribe to the divisive ideology set forth in that original article) – notwithstanding my own proclivities, whatever they may be.

As it happens, this was a question that detained me when I was transcribing Latin texts for my dissertation: where should I stick it (so to speak)? Those Renaissance printers were – it has to be said – over-fond of colons, and they liked virgules well enough, but where were the semicolons? In the event, I stuck to commas and full stops. Perhaps it all comes down to my 'fear of complexity and nuance'…